


May Goodness and Mercy Follow You

by SpicaV



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cardassian Culture, M/M, Male Bonding, Male Friendship, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Episode: s04e01-02 Way of the Warrior, Tenderness, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicaV/pseuds/SpicaV
Summary: "Damnable Klingons and their hotheaded rage. So uncivilized. Where was the finesse? The witty repartee? The last, sarcastic cut of a bitchy remark before one died and took the final word with them?" Elim Garak recuperates in his quarters after the attack by Drex and his mooks in The Way of the Warrior, and Julian Bashir stops to give him a gift for his health.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 21
Kudos: 81





	May Goodness and Mercy Follow You

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for dark, spy-driven thoughts and oblique mention of assault. Glancing memory only, nothing graphic and open to interpretation.

Taking a deep breath was still a Sisyphean undertaking, and not for the first time Garak sighed, winced, and fantasized about watching Drex’s face contort in agony as he was consumed from the inside out by a phaser beam. He wouldn’t really shoot the Klingon man, of course. Not yet. But if the opportunity rose in the future and the timing was right… His side shot through with pain and he gasped, which of course made it worse. Seven broken ribs and one green-stick clavicle. Damnable Klingons and their hotheaded rage. So uncivilized. Where was the finesse? The witty repartee? The last, sarcastic cut of a bitchy remark before one died and took the final word with them? 

Dejpu'bogh Hov rur qablIj, indeed. 

His door chimed and Garak tried to look at the chronometer from where he lay on the couch. Failed, because his shoulder suddenly shrieked like a red alert. He grunted against the pain. Still, he fancied that Julian was right on time. 

“Come in, my dear doctor,” Garak lilted, taking the chance that he was right and hoping that it wasn’t Odo. Then, there would be talk.

Bashir entered, stepping over the portal saddle and into the shadows of Garak’s quarters. He had a silver case slung near one hip. “How did you know it was me?”

“You always make house calls several hours after I have occasion to visit your lovely infirmary,” Garak said, keeping his voice light. The airy pitch also allowed him to disguise the fact that he was gasping. Medical technology could knit him with ease, but Cardassian physiology meant that many of the pain killing drugs available to the Bajoran station were either ineffective or unwise for him to take. He had not even made it to his bed but chose the couch as the better, more central option.  


“Mmm.” Bashir nodded and watched Garak sit up. No doubt with his eyes narrowed in diagnostic focus.

Garak bared his teeth in an exaggerated smile. Glad for the low light cast by a single oil lamp because Gods and Prophets, his eyes strained with the effort not to let loose a barrage of agony-induced tears. He hissed and turned it into a fake yawn, swung his legs to the deck and tried not to shudder. 

“Lights, up 75%,” he said, surprised when Julian immediately told the computer to turn them back down. “Why Julian, are you sweet on me, come to my quarters to woo me by candlelight?”

“Not quite.” There was a tremor of laughter in Julian’s cool voice. “However, I have brought you a gift.”

“A gift? What occasion warrants this sudden display of generosity?” He hoped it was a case of ice-cold kanar liquor. The swill that Quark had given him wasn’t of decent vintage, though he had already downed the stuff in an effort to quell the pain of his recently mashed torso. 

“Oh, it’s something I asked O’Brien to cook up. I asked him about it a few weeks ago, but, well. Invasions and all.” Bashir smiled, the white of his teeth glowing in the dark and cast of starlight from the portals. Took the case from his shoulder and set it on the floor. “He had a chance to finish it tonight, and given the circumstances…”

Bashir knelt with a graceful curl of his slender body and set to opening the case, drawing out a curious teardrop-shaped machine made of blue transparent aluminium and capped at its narrow end with a silver-blue nozzle. The whole apparatus was the length of the Human’s forearm and gleamed like blown glass. He took it to the head, and the sound of water trickled from the half-open door. Garak remained in place, wanting to follow but unwilling to walk if he did not have to. Between the ache and the alcohol he was uncertain if he could keep to his feet. The prospect of falling and damaging his ribs again caused a faint tug of nausea.

“Here.” Bashir brought the machine out again and set it on the narrow shelf at Garak’s couch. “And one more thing.”

He procured a small vial of brown glass, a black rubber stopper and pipette gleaming as he opened it. The smell of Cardassian lotus flowers bloomed in the air as Bashir opened a small panel in the bottom of the contraption. He muttered as he tried to get the dropper to dispense, but this was evidently the first time he had used it. The silence was stretching thin.

“So! Did you hear how that lovely Kasidy creature fared, aboard the  _ Xhosa _ ?” Garak smiled, tried to straighten up completely. Winced as his ribs stabbed with a lance of pain. He hoped that Julian couldn’t smell the kanar already on his breath.

“She was unharmed, but Dax said I should have seen the way she beamed at Sisko when he got the Klingons to break off the tractor beam. Like they were the only two people in the room with nary a slip of space between them. There.” Julian snapped the panel back into place. “We’ll give that a moment and then I’ll turn it on. Why don’t you lay down and I’ll bring a cup of tea.”

“Nonsense, dear doctor. Why serve me in my own quarters when I am the host?” Garak unfolded his hands from behind his back with only a tiny groan of pain, which he covered with a chuckle. Ignored Julian’s quick glance. The replicator glowed only a dozen steps away, he could make that distance—

“Elim.”

Ah, that smooth, sweet voice like a caress.

“Elim. Lie. Down.” 

He obeyed. How could he not?

He tugged his smile high up into his eyes and tried to appear neither psychotic nor pleading as he calculated the best way to lie down again with his dignity intact. “What is this ‘gift’ that you have brought me?”

“A humidifier,” Bashir said, pointing at the couch with a commanding finger. He did not look away as Garak settled with a strained groan. The doctor stepped close and assisted him, taking one of Garak’s calves in his hand so that the other man could stretch out without lifting the entire weight of his legs onto the cushions. He made sure his friend’s limbs were well-arranged before letting go. “I remember what you said about being too cold and too dry all the time. We’ve fixed the heat problem in your quarters, but the humidity was another issue entirely.”

“I remember. The vapor would get into the air filtration systems and carry it throughout the station.” Garak sighed long with relief as he finally lay out again. The pain was less, here, though it still sang merrily along with his heartbeat. He suddenly felt bone-weary exhausted. “When my people called it Terok Nor there was no need for compartmentalizing.”

“Yes. Well, this humidifier—and the oil I just put into it—can localize the humidity effect. A little engineering and a little chemistry know-how, and voila, a gift for my dear plain and simple Garak.” Julian smiled and knelt next to the couch so that Garak could see his marvelous hazel eyes for the first time since he stepped into his quarters. The faint smell of sterile soap and the Human’s spicy aftershave warmed the air, and Garak inhaled as deeply as he could. Such a beautiful creature, that one. Julian tilted his head with boyish charm. “What tea will you have? I was going to suggest a glass of kanar for the both of us, but.”

He nodded to the empty bottle tucked near the end of the couch. 

Gods, Prophets, damn, chuifak, and ki’guv. 

“It’s alright, Garak. I probably would have done the same. In the Ancient West they used a tincture of  _ opium, _ of all things, for pain relief.” Julian brought the Cardassian’s attention back to him by laying a warm, placating hand over the cool grey one. “It was called laudanum. Now, what tea?”

“Red leaf.”

“I’ll make it two.”

Garak watched him go to the replicator and admired Julian’s narrow hips with a tired appreciation. Any other night and he would have thrilled at the doctor’s presence in such an intimate space as his private quarters, with the lights low and the smell of lotus blossoms on the air; on Cardassia Prime they were significant symbols of love and desire, furtive sex, willing flesh. They opened only at night, like the legs of an eager lover. But with his bruised body and the tension of unwelcome Klingon friends—hah! “friends”—and the threat of the Dominion infiltration… Garak anticipated not the doctor’s caresses or slender body, but the hemming of soldier’s uniforms, subspace-scrambled transmissions, and more time spent under the hot pulse of an osteo-regenerator. 

“Humidifier, level seven,” Julian said, bringing two mugs of fragrant red leaf tea, hot and spicy. He helped put an extra pillow under Garak’s back with practiced ease and handed him his mug. Caressed his friend’s wrist with the pad of his thumb, and Garak shivered in response. The touch had lingered over the pulse point just between the bracelets of fortune, a famous Cardassian erogenous zone. Almost as stimulating as a massage on his neck ridges or caresses of his orbital bones. 

Garak wondered if Julian knew this. He might, the imp; the doctor studied physiology charts of hundreds of species with the same relish that some people exhibited when eating a particularly flavorful dessert. 

Julian stood, making sure that Garak was settled, before dipping into the silver case again. He drew out a padd, thumbed it to reduced lighting and called up the sixth chapter in the great Cardassian epic,  _ The Thrice-Looped Chain _ . Garak nodded in invitation at the sleek, chocolate-brown barrel chair that he had ordered after the incident with his cranial implant. He had little use for other furniture before that night; when Julian had stayed with him through detox they had to bring in a hideous blue chair from a hallway lounge for him to sit in. That wouldn’t do. The new chair looked warm and inviting, gleamed with dark shadows. Not some enormous blue puff that looked like an afterthought. 

To his surprise Julian sat down on the couch with him. There was just enough room; Garak had lain down with his feet off the side, intending to rearrange his position once his torso stopped twinging. Now he would have to keep his feet off and endure the uncomfortable angle. He tried not to think about it, but the more he tried the more his legs twitched with the strain. Julian suddenly reached forward and drew Garak’s feet up onto his lap. Garak looked to him in a lapse of honest startlement. The doctor didn’t acknowledge the act; he was still reading, well into a thick wedge of paragraph. 

Garak sipped his red leaf tea to cover his surprise; it was slightly more spicy than usual, perhaps enhanced by the humidity already circling the couch and warming the air further. Garak relaxed but was hyper aware of the warmth of Julian’s thighs beneath his ankles. This was not an act of friendship; he could not imagine Julian and that loud, shapeless, pale O’Brien lounging on a couch with the engineer’s stocking-clad feet in his lap.

He hoped his feet didn’t smell. Though he had taken a shower after his return from the infirmary to wash the crusted blood from his neck, pain caused Cardassians to release stress scents from their hands, feet, and any other part of their bodies designed for sweat. Garak could detect this distinct smell—described by some as oily and metallic—on his own skin. He knew Julian had a keen nose; he had seen the man diagnose an Oranite with cancer just by sitting next to him at Quark’s bar for a few minutes. Julian had demurred his ability, but the panel in medbay proved his accuracy; he had the Oranite treated and cured within twenty minutes. They had even insisted on buying Julian’s drinks for the rest of the night, and Garak had helped him back to his quarters after his friend became happily sloshed.

Now he studied Julian, backlit with warm orange flame and lit in blue-white across his face from the electronic novel. The young man’s long lashes seemed to fan the warm, moist air, the scent of lotus sweet and subtle. Garak felt himself sinking into a lull, considering sleep. 

Then Julian began rubbing his foot with his idle left hand, working Garak’s toes and arch with the pad of his thumb. And, oh, that was nice, that was good. 

Pain precluded complete arousal, and though Garak felt his cock stir in the recessed folds of his groin he didn’t really want sex at this moment. Julian’s touch was sensual, erotic yes, but the idea of sex didn’t call to him. 

Ah, irony. He had been wanting to get Julian into his quarters for years, and now he didn’t even want him.

No, that was wrong. He wanted Julian to stay and keep rubbing at his foot with that marvelous modulation of caress and pressure.

Garak sighed, letting his eyes fall shut. This was not something he did often; even when he took men or the occasional woman or intersex person to his bed he never closed his eyes for more than a moment. He had made that mistake once, long ago, falling asleep in his sex partner’s arms on Cardassia and woke with a knife at his throat, the rough hands of two of his fellow Order operatives clutching at him, turning him over, the sour smell of alcohol and blood and his own body making him sick. He hadn’t told anyone, neither Enabran Tain nor his own operatives, taking the assault as a lesson in trusting beyond what another person deserved. So he had lain there, afterward, collecting his clothes and calculating why the men had not just slit his throat when they were done with him. 

He did them  _ that _ favor the following month, once he had argued for their promotions with a fawning, wheedling smile and they let their guards down. Let the other watch while his friend drowned in his own red-black blood. Licked the knife then let him share that fate.

But look at him, fool that he was, half asleep with his legs across Julian’s lap and not making the best of it. His cool-voiced, merciful doctor who mended his old bones and pummeled skin. Garak looked again to Julian, who yawned and scrolled further down into the narrative. Ah, the passage where Gul Amak sacrifices his own brother’s ship to an enemy combatant in order to save their father, a Legate. This choice would prove to be the Amak’s downfall. 

Pressure to speak rose in Garak’s throat, but he swallowed the compulsion along with a mouthful of tea. Set the cup aside when it hung too heavy in his hand. 

The scent of lotus and humidity curled around him, as soft as a lover’s arms. Garak yawned, trying to keep his breath shallow enough not to hurt and the yawn quiet enough not to disturb Julian, who would certainly leave if he suspected fatigue. Garak lay still, content to watch the doctor until his eyes sank closed. Concentrated on the circles of pleasure on his feet, his toes, now moving up to his ankle, his calf.

Pity, the pain in his side. Pity, the lack of caresses on the rest of his body. 

Garak’s breathing evened out after a long while, and Bashir looked up from the padd, smiled. The Cardassian looked younger in his sleep, the expressive face finally at rest, lies and truths fallen silent. Lips slightly parted. 

Bashir considered his friend, the dark lashes laying on his cheeks. Moved with love, which at this moment overwhelmed his usual admiration and suspicion. How beautiful Elim looked in this low light, all warm grey and black onyx, a faint blue blush along his neck ridges and in the inverted tear of his duan. Interesting, this. He was used to a chalky grey pallor to Elim’s skin; now the Cardassian’s appearance seemed more supple, a purplish tint along his parted lips that gave him a healthier color. 

Guilt and sorrow ached within Julian’s chest. So this is what his friend looked like when warm and moisturized enough. He knew that Elim wore temperature-modulated undershirts when on DS9, had a collection of moisturizing creams scented with herbs from his homeworld. These, apparently, were not enough. Compared to his coloring now, Elim typically looked almost… desiccated. 

He thumbed the chronometer in his padd. 22:30, time for his own sleep, which he usually observed with religious adherence the night before a duty shift. But here was Elim, sound asleep and the pinched, painful expression gone from his face. Eyelids fluttering in mid-cycle sleep. Maybe dreaming. Julian didn’t quite know; the medical facts about Cardassians that Enabran Tain had given him informed only so far. These were for physiology only and contained nothing about mental health. All of his inquiries for how to treat Cardassians had thus far been ignored or rejected by the Cardassian government; they knew who the files were for, and Elim’s exile extended even to his healthcare, it seemed. Julian sighed and turned back to the end of the chapter in  _ The Thrice-Looped Chain. _ Dreadful stuff. The author used the phrases “he bade his time” and “he strove mightily” enough that the audio version would make for a good drinking game. 

Elim sighed, muttered something in his native language that the universal translator didn’t quite catch. Julian looked over to him, smiled with deep affection when he saw that Elim was laughing in his sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Duan = the teardrop-shaped depression on a Cardassian's forehead; I cannot believe we didn't get a canon word for this. Ah well, that is what fandom is for.


End file.
